Slender Man

Some may be asking what is Slender Man? Others may be asking how do you not know who Slender Man is? In this article, we are going to take a look at the myth and reality of Slender Man, including his influence in today's pop culture.

In 2009, a contest was being run on the forums of the website Something Awful (http://www.somethingawful.com/). The idea of the contest was for forum posters to show off their photo shopping skills, using real photos and placing inside them, supernatural elements. All of the admissions on the forum contest were known, by all involved, to be fake. But then one contestant took the contest and turned it on its head. This contestants name was Victor Surge. What Mr. Surge brought to the contest quickly became a viral internet myth, taking on a life of its own. The photos that Mr. Surge submitted showed what appeared to be a very tall thing that looked very human like only it had no face or discernible features. Slender Man wears a Grey suit and tie. In the photos, Slender Man appears in the background. What made this so intriguing at the time were the captions of supposed eye witness of Slender Man, which to the unsuspecting, confirmed his "existence".

It did not take long for the photos to leave the Something Awful forums. Once out into the wilds of the internet, Slender Man quickly became what could be called the very first internet myth. The photos were shared by the millions and Slender Man soon began appearing all over the net. It did not take long for Slender Man to make his video game debut in a game called Slender: Eight Pages. Slender: Eight Pages is an indie developed title that was created using the Unity game engine. It is a first person survival horror game developed by Parsec Productions. Players are tasked with finding eight pages through a fog filled journey. Sounds like it should be easy, however, once the player collects the first page, Slender Man begins hunting the player down. Players must run from Slender Man and continue collecting the pages that are scattered around the game. If the player finds all eight pages, Slender Man will appear behind them and the game will end, if players are caught by Slender Man before all eight pages are found, the game will end and players will have to restart if they wish to see the end credits roll by or unlock other modes in the game. The game is free to play and should be played by any who has any interest in the Slender Man myth.

After the initial reception of Slender: Eight Pages, other developers were quick to cash in on the success of this internet phenomenon. Many other games were created using Slender Man as the main bad guy. Many of these games are small 2d flash games, such as Kill Slender 2D and Slender Man 2D: Sanatorium and Slender: Bones of Children 1 and 2. Kill Slender 2D players seek out bullets instead of pages, using these bullets to put an end to Slender Man once and for all, or so the developers would like for us to think. In Slender Man 2D: Sanatorium, players are given the same game as Slender: Eight Pages, but made for flash in case players cannot run the Unity Engine. In the Bones of Children flash based game, Slender Man has hidden the bones of several children. It is up to the player to find these bones and to avoid Slender Man until they have collected all the bones in the game.